1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a vehicle travel control apparatus, and more particularly to a vehicle travel control apparatus that executes turning facilitation control that controls wheel longitudinal force(s) such that the longitudinal force of a turning path inner side wheel becomes smaller than the longitudinal force of a turning path outer side wheel, and vehicle dynamics control that controls wheel longitudinal force(s) so as to stabilize the turning motion of the vehicle.
2. Description of Related Art
For example, turning facilitation control is known which enhances the turning performance of the vehicle by applying braking force to the turning path inner side rear wheel, as described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 11-49020. Meanwhile, for example, vehicle dynamics control is known which stabilizes the turning motion of the vehicle by applying braking force to a control target wheel(s) determined as needed.
The control target wheel(s) for such turning facilitation control and the control target wheel(s) for such vehicle dynamics control do not always coincide with each other, and these controls execute different control procedures, and thus they may interfere with or conflict with each other. Therefore, when the turning facilitation control and the vehicle dynamics control both need to be executed, preferably, only one of them is executed.
As such, in a situation where the turning facilitation control and the vehicle dynamics control both need to be executed, only the one with a higher priority (which is, normally, the vehicle dynamics control) may be executed. In such a case, however, various determination processes for determining both whether the turning facilitation control needs to be executed and whether the vehicle dynamics control needs to be executed are constantly executed, and if they both need to be executed, the control with a higher priority is selected, making the control complicated or troublesome.